Epigenetic factors may play a key role in unraveling the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathogenesis of several neuropsychiatric disorders, including depression and drug addiction. Genes appear to explain only part of the risk factor for developing these disorders. A central objective of my lab is to: (1) determine how the environment interacts with genes and identify mechanisms by which experience confers enduring changes in gene expression, and (2) discover novel susceptibility (or resilience) genes to understand how they influence behavior.